


Objects in the Mirror are Closer Than They Appear

by zelda_zee



Series: Golden State [1]
Category: Lost
Genre: Alternate Universe, California, M/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 15:14:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2072985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zelda_zee/pseuds/zelda_zee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Much to everyone’s surprise, when they got back Jack didn’t bury himself in his work, have a nervous breakdown, become a raging alcoholic or commit suicide. Instead he bought a Ducati.</i> </p><p>Originally posted for the 2007 Lost Luau.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Objects in the Mirror are Closer Than They Appear

Much to everyone’s surprise, when they got back Jack didn’t bury himself in his work, have a nervous breakdown, become a raging alcoholic or commit suicide. Instead he bought a Ducati.

He thought perhaps no one was more surprised than he was.

He headed east, then north, then west, zigzagging across the country. He visited people - family, old friends, island people. It wasn’t like he was running away, or on some big quest or something. He phoned, he wrote, he stayed in touch. He called his mother, he checked in with Marc whenever he was in LA. He was still Jack, just a bit older and sadder, less likely to trust, more likely to keep to himself than he had been before.

Movement was the key, he told himself. As long as he kept moving, he’d be okay.

He thought about Kate a lot, and Sawyer. Certain things about them made more sense to him now.

Whenever he passed through Iowa he'd stop and visit Kate. She understood why he kept on the move. He thought staying still was killing her by degrees.

He rode north from LA, spent a night in Big Sur. The next day he got a late start, stopped at a bar outside of Salinas in the early afternoon, the thought of cold beer making his mouth water. He hadn’t been on the road all that long, but he was already learning the network of biker bars that dotted the country. This place was typical, an unassuming Western-style roadhouse with fading paint and neon beer signs in the windows. There was an orange tree laden with fruit in the parking lot. Behind the building, fields of cabbage stretched toward the coast. In front of it, a row of motorcycles, mostly Harleys.

Jack was momentarily blinded when he entered the bar, the dim interior such a contrast to bright sunlight that all he could see were dust motes floating suspended in front of his eyes. He made his way toward where he thought the bar must be, slid onto a barstool. He ordered a beer as his eyes slowly adjusted.

In the corner a couple guys were playing pool, full-out biker dudes, Hell’s Angels to judge by the skull logo on their jackets. The bar was dotted with more of the same, mostly sitting alone. On the next stool but one was a shaggy-haired man in a wife-beater, dark-rimmed reading glasses slipping down his nose, absorbed in a book.

Jack looked again. And then he stared.

“Hey, Doc,” Sawyer said, not looking up and not sounding the slightest bit surprised.

Jack swallowed. “Sawyer.”

Sawyer carefully marked his place and turned to him, giving him a odd, knowing smile, and Jack knew what he meant by it. There was nothing in this world that should surprise them at this point.

“You know,” Sawyer said, holding up his book, “there’s a character in here named Doc. Funny, hunh?”

Jack looked at the title. _Cannery Row_.

“Yeah,” he said. “Quite a coincidence.”

“Aww, hell, Doc. You know there ain’t no such thing.” Sawyer slid over to the stool beside Jack.

“How are you, Sawyer?” Jack asked. It was strange, how hard his heart was beating, how dry his mouth was. He couldn’t look away from Sawyer’s face. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed looking at him.

Sawyer seemed to be having the same problem, because he was staring too. For a long moment silence hung between them, still and heavy.

“I’m good,” said Sawyer finally, blinking and looking away. “I’m good. Just… I’m fine." He inhaled, let it out in a sharp sigh. "Heard you quit doctorin’.”

“Kate?”

“We keep in touch.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah. It wasn’t for me anymore. Maybe… someday. But not now.”

Sawyer was watching him steadily and suddenly Jack was overwhelmed by a sense of unreality. He’d hung out with Hurley and Sun and Kate since he'd been back and that hadn't been strange, in fact the strangest thing about it had been how normal it seemed, though it’s true he hadn’t run into them totally out of the blue in the middle of nowhere. But this was Sawyer. If they were ever going to see each other again, it would have to be like this.

He was still staring.

“I – sorry. You've gotta admit, this is just weird. What’re you doing here?”

“Same as you, or so I hear,” Sawyer said. “Got me a Harley. I travel ‘round some. I got a nice little spread in the country, back in Tennessee near where I grew up, but I get antsy if I stay put too long. So I saddle up and see where the wind takes me. Ride 'til I get it all outta my system. Then I go home again.”

“You’re not – not – uh, still –” Jack faltered, not sure how to say it.

“No, Doc,” Sawyer said, giving him a sidelong look. “You’ll be happy to hear that I am no longer a danger to society. Or, I guess in the eyes of the law I still am, since I never did pay my debt on a few counts. But I like to think of myself as a recovering criminal. One day at a time. Society ain’t got nothin’ to fear from me. Not anymore.” He drew a circle with his fingertip through the condensation on his glass. “That _is_ what you were tryin' to ask?”

Jack nodded, but didn’t comment. He couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound condescending. And something had occurred to him, a strange thought. He turned it over in his head, looking at it from different angles.

“So. Where’re you headed next?” He tried to make it sound casual. He thought maybe he succeeded.

“I'm on my way to Oregon.” He said it like an Easterner. _Or-ee-gon_. “I got an old friend in Eugene. How ‘bout you?”

“I’m going to Sonoma.” His eyes cut to the side, caught Sawyer’s. “I like the wine up there.”

Sawyer grinned. “You goin' wine tastin’? Now why don’t that surprise me?”

“Whatever,” shrugged Jack, but he smiled too, enjoying just how predictable Sawyer was. “The coast there’s something else. Have you seen it?”

“Can’t say as I have.” Sawyer's voice had softened a bit.

“You should,” said Jack, and then he met Sawyer’s gaze.

“You want company?” Sawyer asked. Jack watched the skin around Sawyer’s eyes tighten, almost a wince, as if he were expecting some kind of blow.

“Yeah,” said Jack, looking straight at him. “I think I do.”

It was a funny thing, the way it pinched inside his chest when Sawyer smiled.

~

Sawyer’s Harley was a classic, big and black, with gleaming chrome. It gave Jack an electric jolt to his groin when Sawyer straddled it, which didn’t exactly surprise him. In fact, it didn’t surprise him at all because Sawyer on that bike, with his scuffed, square-toed boots and his faded jeans and that white shirt and all that tanned skin on display was a sight that would get anyone’s juices flowing.

Just because Jack had never before indicated an interest didn’t mean he hadn’t thought about it a whole helluva lot. He'd had his reasons for keeping it to himself.

Sawyer was smirking at him. He knew how he looked. The man was shameless.

“If you lay your bike down, you’re gonna be in bad shape in that thing,” Jack pointed at his shirt.

“Yeah, well. It’s too fuckin’ hot for leather.” He eyed Jack’s leather pants and jacket. “Don’t know how you stand it.” He winked. “It suits you, though.”

 _Oh hell_ , thought Jack. _Here we go_. He had a feeling things were about to get interesting.

~

They rode up through San Francisco, continued north up the coast. They stopped in Bolinas and walked out onto the beach. Sawyer bought a couple joints off a guy who looked like he was straight out of 1974, and they ambled slowly along the shoreline, passing one back and forth.

They stopped for dinner in Marshall, at an Italian seafood place, looked like it’d been there for years. They sat on the deck and ate barbecued oysters and shared a pitcher of beer and ended up laughing their asses off. Jack knew it was just because that weed was fucking awesome, but still, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d had so much fun.

“Shit,” he said, wiping his eyes. “Too damn bad things were so fucked up back then. You and I could’ve had a lot more fun than we did.”

Sawyer snorted. “Sure we could’ve. If we hadn’t been so busy tryin’ to not _die_.”

Jack watched Sawyer slurp down another oyster. “I was too hard on you,” he said, suddenly serious.

Sawyer looked at him in surprise, then shook his head. “Well – you ‘n everybody else. I ain’t the type of guy to make things easy, Doc. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

“Still…” said Jack, remembering the feeling of his fist connecting with Sawyer’s face, his blood slippery beneath his fingers.

“Forget it,” said Sawyer, slapping Jack’s hand away from the last oyster. “You can make it up to me now.”

~

They rode up past Bodega Bay, stopped at a sheltered cove Jack knew, spreading their sleeping bags on the sand. It was chilly but they didn’t build a fire, sitting side by side but not touching, sharing a bottle of whiskey. Jack was plenty warm in his leathers, but Sawyer toed off his boots and slipped into his bag.

Sawyer lit up the other joint and they smoked it down, not talking, at ease with the quiet. Above them the sky was filled with stars. The surf pounded relentlessly. The sand was soft under Jack’s hands.

“This remind you of the island?” Sawyer asked.

“Not one bit,” Jack said firmly.

He lay back and watched the stars blink and blur. He was wasted, he thought. Wasted at the beach, like he hadn’t a care in the world. He giggled to himself and when Sawyer leaned toward him with clear intent, his eyes hazy and heavy-lidded, the curve of his lip shining in the moonlight, Jack reached up and pulled him down. His mouth was hot and wet, his kiss deep and focused. There was hunger in it, and hunger thrumming through Sawyer’s body and bleeding into Jack’s. Sawyer scrambled out of his sleeping bag and pressed himself, trembling, on top of him and Jack wound his fingers into Sawyer’s hair and held on as the world tipped, as he felt it lurch and roll beneath him. He squeezed his eyes shut and kissed Sawyer as if it was his final act, as if his lips, his mouth, his slick, wet tongue were life, sustenance, oxygen. Sawyer made a noise, a satisfied growl that slid into a purr, low and throaty, and Jack’s cock twitched painfully, confined in his leather pants.

He heaved, rolling them over, cradling Sawyer’s head with his hand and ending up on top of him, somehow never breaking the kiss. He ground his hips down and Sawyer gasped into his mouth, bucking violently, biting at Jack’s lips. Jack worked a hand down between them and Sawyer grabbed his wrist, showing him just where he wanted it. Between them they got Sawyer’s jeans unfastened, Sawyer panting, “Jesus, _yes_ , oh fuck, _yes_ ,” but when Jack closed his hand around Sawyer’s dick all he managed was a harsh, half-strangled moan as he arched so hard Jack thought it must hurt.

 _Wild_ , Jack thought, as Sawyer writhed and twisted beneath him, _God he’s wild_ , and it was the hottest thing he’d ever seen. His cock felt perfect in Jack’s hand, pulsing and hot and slippery. Sawyer wrapped one leg around Jack’s, used it for leverage, thrusting fast and hard into Jack’s grip, his head back, his wordless groans and grunts lost in the pounding of the surf. There wasn’t much finesse to it, with Jack frantically licking and sucking Sawyer’s neck and rubbing his crotch against Sawyer's thigh and Sawyer furiously fucking Jack’s hand, but it didn’t matter, because it was good, unbelievably good, amazingly good. Sawyer’s fingers clutched at him, holding on tight to the sleeve of his jacket as his hips made a series of rapid, spasmodic jerks, his sharp, helpless cries echoing through the cove as his come fountained in hot stripes over Jack’s hand.

Jack tore his pants open and pushed them down over his hips and humped Sawyer’s thigh, his face pressed to his neck, his mouth open against his skin. It only took the touch of Sawyer’s fingers on the head of his cock to make him come, shaking apart and filled with ecstasy so achingly sweet that he couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t even breathe.

Afterward, he collapsed onto the sand beside Sawyer with a groan, his hand lying on Sawyer’s stomach, so he felt it the moment Sawyer tensed up. Jack could practically feel the doubt creeping in.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, slurring a little. “And don’t you dare do it. You’d better be here when I wake up, or I swear to God, Sawyer, I’ll chase you down and when I find you it won’t be pretty.”

Sawyer turned his head to look at him, but said nothing.

“Sawyer…” he warned.

“Okay. _Okay_. Jeez, fine. I’ll be here.” Sawyer worked his way back into his sleeping bag. Jack heard him mumble _damn possessive control freak_ but he was too absorbed in the challenge of getting out of his clothes and into his own sleeping bag to mind. Plus, he kind of liked the idea of being possessive of Sawyer. Yeah, he liked that idea a lot.

~

They went into town for coffee, sat outside in the morning sun. Sawyer kept looking at him and frowning, then looking away and it started to make Jack nervous. After the fourth or fifth time he did it, Jack put his coffee down.

“What?”

“What do you mean, 'What'?”

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

Sawyer took a sip of coffee. He gazed out over the sparkling bay toward the sea.

“I, uh…” He glanced up at Jack through his hair.

“Is this about last night?”

“No. Not really. Just, um…”

Jack sighed impatiently. “C’mon, what is it? It’s not like you to be at a loss for words.”

“Jack.” Jack’s smile disappeared. Sawyer called him _Jack_. Sawyer cleared his throat, swallowed hard.

“Would you… d’you think you’d mind... I want you to call me James.” His eyes flicked up at Jack’s surprised face, then down at his coffee. His next words were so quiet Jack had to strain to hear them. “Think I’m kinda done with Sawyer these days.”

Jack watched him, trying to discern Sawyer's expression, but he remained stubbornly focused on his coffee cup. Jack inched one hand across the tabletop and let his fingers brush Sawyer’s.

“Sure,” he said softly. “I can do that.”

~

The first winery was up above the Russian River, in a barn surrounded by roses and jasmine and clematis. The mingled scents encircled them as they kissed, leaning against the trunk of a gnarled oak tree.

Inside it was cool, the rich smell of earth and the sour tang of fermentation in the air. Jack stood at the counter, swirling a glass of berry-red wine made with grapes from hundred year old vines. It tasted dark and complex, sweet and sharp. It tasted like a kiss, like loss, like home.

He held up the glass and said, “James, come over here. I think you’ll like this one.”

James looked away from the painting of golden hills and blue skies that he was studying, and Jack felt his heart tug at the smile on his face, dazzling, beautiful. Jack laughed a little, unable to help himself, as James walked toward him.

 


End file.
